Souvenirs of the Future

“You try to remember the future. A bird painted on the ceramic panel in a historical palace has found its place on the wall. The tiles of a church and a mosque have been painted on canvas. The pattern of a centuries-old ceramic plate appears before you on a velvet curtain. The broken flowers of an old vase are now sculptures. A green plant unfurls its leaves during the day, only to close them at night. You now walk inside the patterns you once saw on a kilim. As the works in the museum’s collection flow on the screen of your phone, they each break and fall on the ground. Broken pieces come together in photographs. New ceramics fire in the workshop’s kiln. The dust of the building has turned into a geometric design; the book you read last summer has become porcelain memories in the depths of the sea. A bird feather has fallen into the water. The branches of the tree reaching down to the ground carry ceramic cups. You travel along a highway covered in roses. As the baubles slowly burn, your tears settle on the shelves.” 

Souvenirs of the Future approaches the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics Collection with a future-oriented perspective. It focuses on the memories recalled through objects whilst exploring the connections between memory and future imaginings through a contemporary lens. The publication accompanying the exhibition includes a comrepehensive curatorial text by Ulya Soley in addition to a thought-provoking piece by Glenn Adamson titled “Ceramics in Tomorrowland” which explores the role ceramics play in revealing valuable but abstract information regarding their origins. Maurizia Boscagli contributes a captivating essay titled “Object, Body, Memory: Time Passing in Amnesiac Modernity” in which the author questions the significance of speculative memory linked to objects through literary allusions. The publication also features a historical text by Dinos Kogias investigating the origins of ceramic production in the Kütahya region as well as a detailed report by Bilal Yılmaz and Lydia Chatziiakovou prepared as part of their research project on the curent state of ceramic workshops in Kütahya

Publication Date: 2023
Number of Pages: 184
ISBN: ISBN 978-605-71205-8-8